In the toe lasting of shoes, wherein a shoe assembly is provided that comprises a last having an upper mounted thereon and an insole located on its bottom, it is standard practice to stretch the upper about the toe portion of the last by means of pincers jaws that grip the upper margin while the shoe assembly is supported on a support and the support is raised from a lower support position to an upper position. It is also known practice, after the support has completed its rise, to impart, if desired, downward movement to the pincers jaws to thereby relocate the stretched upper about the last if the stretched upper is not properly located at the completion of the rise of the shoe assembly.
With the recent introduction of knob nose shoes having a knob projecting upwardly of the toe portion of the vamp of the upper, greater stresses have been imparted to the portion of the upper stretched about the knob during the rise of the shoe assembly while the upper margin is gripped between the pincers jaws. At times, this has caused a tearing or rupturing of that part of the upper which is bearing against the knob. In order to alleviate this problem, the force applied to the upper margin by the pincers has been reduced so as to permit some slippage of the upper margin between the pincers jaws during the rise of the shoe assembly. However, when this pincers force is so reduced, the upper also undesirably tends to slip between the pincers jaws if the pincers jaws are lowered, subsequent to the rise of the shoe assembly, for the purpose of relocating the stretched upper about the last.